Sports mega events increasingly take place in the metropolises of emerging economies. As a city-marketing tool, these events are said to make the host cities more visible in the international competition for foreign and domestic investments. Infrastructural upgrades and fast tracking of urban development projects, as well as giving focus and legitimation to urban policy makers, are supposedly the further benefits of hosting mega events. This recalls the 'Festivalisation of Urban Policy' hypothesis by Häußermann and Siebel, which describes the instrumentalisation of large-scale cultural and sports events to support image building and to catalyse urban development in European and US cities. Given that socioeconomically very heterogeneous nations increasingly host these events, it is necessary to extend the debate and to investigate whether the political, economic and social effects in these countries of the Global South-conventionally labelled as the developing world-can be explained with the festivalisation hypothesis: Are the urban development effects qualitatively comparable and, if so, are they more strongly or weakly pronounced than in the Global North? The 2010 International Federation of Football Association World Cup in South Africa is a fitting example to explore the characteristics and dynamics of mega events in the host cities of the Global South.

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This article is based on field research in two South African host cities of the Men's Football World Cup 2010 (eThekwini and Johannesburg). The discussed work is part of the research project "Festivalisation" of Urban Governance: The Production of Socio-Spatial Control in the Context of the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa. In the context of mega-events, impacts and changes on urban development can vary on a spectrum of festivalisation between opposing poles, either-driven by the event‖, or on the other hand where existing configurations of actors and established policies are-driving the event‖. By drawing on a theoretical framework which is inspired by an analytical understanding of urban governance, our assumptions are that (a) different configurations of governance promote different ways of handling the challenges associated to the hosting and (b) that different types of-festivalisation‖ have different consequences and effects for the lived realities of the residents at a local level. The latter is an arena in which urban governance policies are translated, adapted, renegotiated or rejected. We argue that the bringing together of both spheres (local and metropolitan) provides a profound understanding of the process of mega-event implementation and its relation to urban social sustainability.

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